


Consume

by brittleblossoms



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Gender-neutral Reader, Multi, Reader-Insert, mentions of child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 21:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5718274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brittleblossoms/pseuds/brittleblossoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death comes for you in the guise of an old friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consume

You are asleep, and then you aren’t. 

You lie silently in bed for a heartbeat; when nothing grabs your attention, you let your limbs go lax. Sensation oozes back into your muscles like molten lava. For a moment, you think of returning to sleep. Then there’s a quiet flutter at the edge of your mind. With a sigh, you kick away the tangled sheet wrapped around your left ankle and propel yourself up to a seated position. Silas grunts and shifts away from the movement. You sweep a hand across his back and he settles. 

You pad quietly into the hallway. There’s gentle breathing echoing in the small space, courtesy of the cracked bedroom doors. The soft sound loosens the tight knot in your stomach. You stand there for longer than you’d care to admit, just listening. 

Silas doesn’t move when you slink back into bed. You have to nudge him out of the way; he’s moved into the patch of body heat you’d left in your wake, like a cat soaking up the warmth of sunshine. He goes without a fuss. You lay back down, and you do not sleep. 

Time is running out. 

You’d always known you would go back. 

Your heart aches. 

* * *

The mask looks different without the obfuscating blur of sleep. Brighter, sharper, hungrier. It’s more menacing for having seen it before, for what it portends. He’d come for you like a wraith, his long cloak billowing as he’d strode after your fleeing form. You’d wanted him away from the Younglings. Had hoped more than just he would follow. You had known they wouldn’t. 

You hadn’t returned that long ago. You had thought you would have more time. 

Now he stares at you, and you stare back. The chaos in the background fades to nothing, aided by the semblance of remoteness provided by the grove. But you can still feel them dying. 

“Kylo Ren,” you say, the words almost lost in the rain bouncing off the muddied ground just beyond the trees. 

You already know how this ends. 

* * *

Master Luke talks to you gently. Some of the other apprentices grumble, but you never bother to defend yourself. Luke sends you a small smile as your lightsaber shorts out—a misplaced wire, a forgotten piece—and tells you to begin again. _Teacher’s pet_ , one of the apprentices whispers, as you dissemble your creation, sweat beading on your brow. 

Teacher’s pet, you think to yourself. You turn the words over in your mind, dissect them, wonder at them. You find the calm center of your mind and let the Force flow through you. 

Master Luke is kind but stern to all, but handles you like glass. It gnaws somewhere deep in your breastbone. One night, with sweat sliding down your spine, you tell him the name you hear echoing in your head, of the screams that pierce your dreams. He tells you that sometimes, dreams are just dreams. But the corner of his lip keeps pulling down and ruining his gentle smile. 

You can’t stop dreaming of your own death. 

* * *

Your quiet murmur of his name hangs in the air between you. Kylo Ren cocks his head, perhaps wondering how you know him. You wonder, too. The world comes thundering back in, the cotton in your ears dissipating as the high scream of a child rings out into the night. You start to lurch towards the noise; Ren’s hand arcs upward and you grit your teeth as his Force Grip presses your hand away from the handle of your saber and anchors you in place. Ren prowls forward. His heavy footsteps aren’t softened by the mud or the rain pattering down against the canopy of leaves above your heads. 

“Come with me. I could teach you,” he says, an echo of a dream. You concentrate on the filtered buzzing produced by his mask instead of his words. You’ve heard them so many times that it no longer occurs to you to wonder why he would offer, what he would gain. There’s a blaster flash nearby and the sizzle of burning flesh. You can feel Ren nudging at you; the rain and the sounds of battle fade into a piercing hum that grows ever louder. “You’ve already left once; why not again? They couldn’t answer your questions, refused to even try. But there are answers. I could give them to you.” 

His saber sits holstered on his hip; if you close your eyes, you can see the crackling red glow of it, the wildfire energy of it. You’ve never known a stranger’s blade so well. 

It is all so very overwhelming. 

* * *

You have a hard time meeting Leia Organa's eyes. 

Her hand is a bit easier to take. 

You let her pull you up from your place in the dirt. She hands you the training staff the other Padawan had sent spinning away and you still cannot meet her eyes. 

She takes your quiet awe and shame in stride, though, and asks you kindly about your training. It’s hard for you to respond. She perseveres, and manages to get a few sentences out of you. Beside her, her son rolls his eyes. She doesn’t see him, but you do. 

You set your jaw and answer the General’s next question. She gives you a small smile, and then turns her attention back to her brother. 

She calls out your name as she’s leaving, and you snap to attention. “Don’t go easy on them because you want them to like you,” she says quietly. “Give them all a hard time, even Ben. You could have won that match.” 

You bite your lip and look away. Leia sighs as she stands back up to her full height. “May the Force be with you,” she says, and it sends a chill zipping up your spine. 

You resolve to take her words seriously. 

You dump young Ben Solo on his ass five days later in a sparring match. 

It makes him take months to warm up to you as a result, but it feels magnificent. 

* * *

Ren prowls ever closer. His gloved hand is oddly gentle against your jaw . You close your eyes and concentrate; the hum recedes but lingers. Your fingers twitch. “The Dark reveres the strong,” Ren breathes, the effect odd with the distortion of his mask. “You would do well there.” 

Ren leaps back as your lightsaber flares into life with a cyan crackle; one of your twitching fingers has finally been able to complete your quiet quest. The momentary loosening of his Force grip on you is all you need to slam your body into responding. Ren’s lightsaber flares into life just in time to block your first blow. It hisses and crackles against your far more static blade; the hiss of the sabers meeting drowns out the rain as you exchange a series of blows with him. The next time your blades catch, Ren sets his weight and heaves forward. With his tall frame, it’s enough to send you back several steps. Your back foot slides in the mud as you stumble to a stop before setting yourself into a defensive position. You close your eyes. You tap into the strength buried inside you; the cool light of the Force settles into your bones. “You don’t have answers,” you say. “You don’t know me or the answers I seek.” 

Ren sheathes his lightsaber. The arrogance of it makes your skin prickle. The sensation of seeing this again, this time in real life, makes you shiver. 

“I can see it in you,” he says. The rainwater has soaked him; it plasters his ominous outfit tight against his lean form. “The rage. The loneliness. No one understood, no one had answers. You could belong. You would belong.” He’s moving, lightsaber still at his hip, confident that you’ll hold to your teachings. For a moment, you’re tempted. Can feel the tug inside you to lunge forward, to slide your saber through his torso and end the rampage going on just beyond this grove of trees. 

You don’t. 

“You could have answers about Force Visions.” 

You blanch and take another step back. 

Ren presses forward. “I know you can have those answers, just as I know you.” 

And Ren slides off his helmet. 

* * *

Luke isn’t thrilled to find Ben wrapped around your frame in your bed. Neither of you are thrilled that he’s found you. He speaks with Ben first, the low, hushed voices sometimes reaching you from your place outside the door. Occasionally, Ben’s voice rises high in agitation, but Luke’s calm tones always seem to bring him down again. 

You fidget with the small mechanical saber pieces that you have strung around a wire on your wrist. It’s easier to try to piece them together if you have them with you, you’ve found. Sometimes inspiration strikes in the strangest moments. 

Ben storms out of the room, anger seeping from his every pore. You stare after his retreating figure until Luke’s metal hand jolts you into reality. He gestures you into the small room and you settle after a moment. 

He simply watches you with his piercing blue eyes. You squirm. Your fingers go to the cool metal of the saber pieces once more. Luke’s lips quirk in a small smile before his face goes stern again. 

“Ben was just trying to help,” you blurt hotly. 

“So he said.” 

“Ch’lea and Jwar sleep in my bed sometimes too,” you babble. You wish it had been Ch’lea in your bed this morning. Or even Jwar. Not Luke’s nephew. 

“When the dreams are bad,” Luke says, and it should be a question, but it isn’t. 

“Y-yes,” you stutter. Luke’s gaze doesn’t need words to be a prompt. “They feel…real again,” you whisper. “They don’t know what the dreams are about. They just know they’re nightmares. I don’t mean to wake them up,” you murmur, tears pooling hot in your eyes. “But…” _You’ve never seen a saber like this, vibrant, poisonous red and crackling like it’s alive, little lightning bolts of red skipping from strike point to strike point. It slides under your extended blade and between your third and fourth ribs._

Luke sighs. “No more,” he says quietly. “The others will have instructions to wake me if you cannot be consoled.” 

One look quells the argument rising in your throat. 

You don’t mention that you’ve discovered Force Visions. 

Because honestly, you don’t want to know if that’s what you’re having. 

* * *

You have never seen this part in your vision. 

But you know, in an instant, that this is likely how he gets the upper hand. 

You falter in your shock. It’s enough. That piercing hum—it’s the scream of a TIE fighter, the screech of a ship’s hull tearing under blasterfire, the quiet tears of a man among his fallen comrades—picks up again. You can feel him prodding, testing, slithering. You can feel the temptation rising. 

“Ben,” you say slowly, trying out his name, looking for stability, “what have you done?” 

* * *

“Aren’t you cold?” 

“Hardly,” you respond, leaning back on your hands and raising your face towards the radiant light of this planet’s largest moon. Three of the five are in the sky tonight, but the biggest is just beginning its rise, and it hangs large and bright, just over the horizon’s edge. The cool light of the moon is so much better than the bright blaze of this system’s star. It’s the dead of winter on this planet, and everything is still lush and green. It’s unnatural. “It’s finally reaching tolerable levels.” 

Ben scoffs and settles next to you on the roof, his dangling legs occasionally catching yours mid-swing. “Not every planet is an abominable hellscape of winter,” he says. 

You just hum. 

He sits with you quietly; you can feel him turn his gaze towards you from time to time, but you keep your eyes closed, face tilted towards the moon. 

You crack an eye open the second time he shivers. He’s gazing out towards the rocky fields, steadily not looking at you. 

He shivers again. 

With a roll of your eyes, you slide closer and press your frame against his side; he jumps and starts to pull away. You stay quiet. After a moment, he settles against you and the heat you practically emanate. Eventually, the silence between you falls into quiet murmurs as you attempt to name the stars in this strange system. 

Things are different, after. 

* * *

“Ben is dead,” Ren snaps. The flare of anger in his dark eyes is so achingly familiar. “I’ve found myself in Kylo Ren. And you can find yourself, too. Your anger is cold, but it’s anger nonetheless.” He twists his hand; you cry out as pain spreads behind your skull. “You could join me,” he says, the pain ebbing away. “We would be strong together. Again. You would have nothing to fear. No dreams to haunt you.” 

Tears prick at the edges of your eyes as you struggle to gather the Force in you. It takes you a moment to find your center and force him to the edges of your mind; he’s always been stronger than you. Luke would always send you that cautionary gaze when the small flicker of jealousy in your chest started to whip up into a flame. “I can teach you,” Ren says, his words soft as his mental presence settles into that particular memory. “I can make you my equal.” 

Your lightsaber grows loose in your grip. Ren prowls forward again, sensing weakness. He whispers your name. Intention lines every syllable of the sound. 

He’s giving you a way out. A new path blooms before your eyes, shaking off the vision that’s been nestled in the corner of your mind since your Awakening, all those years ago. And there’s a quiet part of you that aches for it. 

There’s movement in the grove of trees to your left. 

* * *

You almost kiss Ben once. 

He’s complaining about his father. It’s a bit heartless, considering your own father had died out on the tundra just a few scant years before Luke came for you, when the dreams took on an edge of reality that lingered even when you were awake, but Ben can be a bit heartless sometimes. 

Personally, you like Han Solo. You don’t bother to bring that up, though. 

But Ben’s grating on your nerves, all whiny teenager in the worst of ways, so you kick his legs out from under him. He scowls up at you and returns the favor before you can maneuver away. 

Your elbow clips his stomach on your way down. Still, Ben recovers first, rolling on top of you to pin your form down. His hair hangs down; you try to reach up with one hand, and he cautiously lets you. Your fingers are soft against his cheek and you're leaning up, just a bit, and he's perhaps leaning down. You're never quite sure. Then there’s a whisper of him at the edge of your mind, so you divert your thoughts from that dangerous path and break free of his grip to smack him in the side. 

For a while, you think he saw your intentions—he was always a bit heavy-handed with his use of the Force—but he says nothing. 

It is not long after that when you meet a man in the marketplace who tries to sell you hothouse flowers from his home planet. He has skin that feels like blessed ice against your hands, and you start to fall in love. 

* * *

The trees rustle again. Ren is still there, pressing into your mind, pressing into your weak points. There’s a part of you that wants him, that wants the answers, that wants the choice. 

But maybe there never was a choice. Maybe this has to happen. 

You look into Ren’s eyes, into Ben’s eyes. 

It settles your mind. 

You know what happens next. You’ve Seen it. 

Maybe it would have been different if you hadn’t. 

* * *

The leather of his training gloves creaks as he clenches his fists at his sides. 

“I should have told you earlier, Ben,” you say, reaching out to touch his shoulder. 

He pulls back before your fingertips can make contact. His chest is heaving; he takes a few measured breathes before running a hand through his long, sweat-dampened locks. 

“Why?” he asks, turning his back on you to put his training staff away. “I’ve no concern about what you do or don’t do.” Ben picks up one of the training orbs and flicks it on, throwing it up into the air. It hovers on standby mode for the moment. “Besides, the weak always run.” 

You bite your lip, more stung than you’d care to admit. “I’m leaving in the morning,” you say softly, uselessly. “If you’d like to see me off.” 

He doesn’t answer; just switches the training orb to active. 

You take the action for the clear dismissal that it is. 

You don’t see him again. 

In the pearly dawn of your morning departure, a time where the two of you had shared so many secrets, Ch’lea tells you that someone wrecked the training room last night. She doesn’t ask you to stay. Maybe she knows that you can’t. That you deserve something good, just in case it all does go so wrong. That things are so muddled that you’re blurring the lines between now and then. You wish she’d impart this wisdom onto some of the others. 

Something at the edge of your mind buzzes as you hug one of the Jedi Younglings tight; there is a whisper that almost sounds like words as you say a quiet goodbye to Luke. And when you turn back one last time to look at the planet you’re departing, at the Order that you’re leaving behind, Silas’ hand sweet on your thigh, there’s a figure in the distance, lean and tall. 

But Ben’s presence doesn’t even slightly change your mind. 

* * *

You flick your lightsaber up and stab towards Ren just as one of the Jedi Younglings bursts from the underbrush. There’s snot flowing down the little girl’s face and she’s slipping too much in the mud. You feel the burst of recognition as she stumbles towards you, and the ice of her fear as she sees Ren’s imposing figure. 

Ren’s saber ignites in a flare of red. 

Somehow, the familiarity of it erases the fear. 

* * *

You’ve been packing. 

It’s slow, but steady. Only essentials, really, and you don’t have many of those. Some parts of the Jedi Order linger in you still. You pack things so small that you’re actually surprised when Silas puts down his holofeed one night and asks about it. He listens carefully, quietly, and without interruption. Once you’re finished, he kisses you carefully on the corner of your lips, and turns over and goes to sleep. 

Perhaps, like you, he has always known this was coming. 

You hope he finds someone much more worthy than you. 

The next morning, the sex is slow and soft and achingly drawn out. In the moment before you come, you think about staying. The bed is warm and damp in the aftermath, and it’s uncomfortable and lovely, and you think again about staying. Then something shifts, deep inside you, and you know you can’t. 

Silas goes as far as the shipyard with you. He does not come to the port with you, nor does he wait for you to leave before going back to the house. You suppose you deserve that. 

* * *

Your blow is a kill shot, but you already know it won’t connect. In a way, it makes it easier. You’re glad you won’t have to live with killing Kylo Ren, with killing Ben. Ren deflects your lightsaber with a deft move, but you can see it in his eyes that it’s closer than he would have liked. It’s instinct, you think, as he maneuvers forward. His saber slides under your extended blade and slips between your third and fourth ribs. There’s only numbness, and then, there’s the fire of it. It spreads beneath your skin like a sickness. 

The momentum of your thrust and his deflection carries you forward. Your fingers are already numbing; your lightsaber flickers as it slips from your grasp. 

You make a noise. Or maybe you just think you do. You always make a noise in the vision, so perhaps you’ve just decided there is one. You’ve gone limp against Ren; he powers his saber down and you collapse fully against him as the blade disappears. 

His mask is cool against your hairline. You’re not sure when he put it back on. Maybe he doesn’t have it on. But he must. You can feel it on your skin, like a frosty breath, and he wore it in your dreams. The girl’s screaming, you think, but it’s fading out fast. You’re able to make eye contact with her briefly. _Run_ , you thunder at her, the cool weight of the Force evaporating fast from your bones. Her eyes widen, but your vision has started to go grey. Then there’s a gloved hand against your face, tilting it up just enough that Ren can look down at you. 

“Shame,” he says, his voice almost cavalier even with the mask’s distortion. You can feel yourself slipping away. “You could have been useful.” 

Kylo Ren drops your limp body into the mud. 

He does not look back.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm super flighty and generally not a person to trust about promises like this but you can potentially expect some stuff for finn and poe and rey in the future bc babies.
> 
> there also may be a prequel to this because this reader is oddly planned out in my head, for all that they're a little strange.
> 
> idk why i'm so fascinated with kylo ren's Jedi purge but i am.


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